Bob Verini

FIREMEN at Atwater Village Theatre

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Bob Verini –   Arts in LA The Echo Theater Company has gone to some lengths to sidestep, in its pre-opening publicity, the subject matter of Tommy Smith’s remarkable new play titled Firemen. The world premiere drama is described as “a different kind of love story” that “explores an unthinkable love relationship,” though what proves unthinkable is … Read more

VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE at the Mark Taper Forum

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Bob Verini –   Arts in LA So you’re a distinguished playwright in your early 60s: a very Chekhovian age; an age when the mind drifts toward dreams once grasped, then compromised, then lost, and fixates on memories of simpler, happier times. You look around your Bucks County farmhouse and think, “Gosh, this looks a lot … Read more

JAMES JOYCE’S THE DEAD at Greenway Court Theatre

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Bob Verini –   Arts in LA For this chamber musical, Shaun Davey and Richard Nelson have crafted Irish faux folk tunes that rely more on vocal brio than beauty. And let’s face it, the characters’ increasing insobriety lowers the bar on singing quality as the play’s Christmastime celebration progresses. But the adaptation of James Joyce’s … Read more

THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA at South Coast Repertory Theater

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Bob Verini –   Arts in LA The Light in the Piazza’s cross-cultural love story, in which red-state Americans fall victim to the allure of Florence circa the early 1950s, is musically alluring, although helmer Kent Nicholson eschews the glamorous spectacle that characterized Bartlett Sher’s Broadway original. With the NY chorus halved, and musical director Dennis … Read more

The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart at the Broad Stage

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Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter The smaller room at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica has been repurposed as a tavern with the audience seated at the bar or small round tables throughout the room. A quintet of rambunctiously versatile performers begin playing traditional melodies on the auld instruments on a postage stamp stage … Read more

An ILIAD at the Broad Stage

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Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter If war and conflict must be begrudgingly considered the natural condition of Mankind, then The Iliad of Homer, voiced and written some 2,800 years ago, remains the most profound exploration of these primal drives to domination and destruction. The act of combat has never been more piercingly described (not … Read more

I’LL GO ON at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

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Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly “That’s the story!” repeated with droll unctuousness becomes a motif in actor Barry McGovern’s solo performance of stories by Samuel Beckett, presented by the Gate Theatre of Dublin at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. The texts — “Molloy,” “Malone Dies” and “The Unnamable” — were selected by McGovern and Gerry … Read more

WALKIN’ IN A WINTER ONE-HIT-WONDERLAND at the Falcon Theatre

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Bob Verini – ArtsInLA The 10th-annual holiday show from Troubadour Theater Company, Walkin’ in a Winter One-Hit-Wonderland, proves to be the occasion for walkin’ down Memory Lane with the previous nine. There’s plenty of reminiscing; video footage of past productions; and in-jokey references to company members and past characters that invest the tight (an intermissionless … Read more

THE STEWARD OF CHRISTENDOM at the Mark Taper Forum

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Bob Verini – ArtsInLA Having well and truly conquered James Tyrone (Long Day’s Journey Into Night), Hickey (The Iceman Cometh), Krapp (Krapp’s Last Tape), and Willy Loman (Death of a Salesman), Brian Dennehy sets up base camp at the Mark Taper Forum to take on his most daunting personal Everest yet. With its dozen or … Read more

PLAY DEAD at the Geffen Playhouse

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Pauline Adamek  – ArtsBeatLA Striking a perfect balance between scares and laughs, Play Dead delivers plenty of delicious thrills, macabre chills and giggles. The one-act show features Todd Robbins as our ghoulish host and runs through December 22 at the Geffen Playhouse.Read more… Bob Verini –   ArtsInLA Back in the heyday of the great movie … Read more